It’s all their fault” Dave spat, lending money then asking so much back, buncha dirty bankers.”

Hearing that word expressed in such a way Mibbet couldn’t help but insert a magic W in the place of the B, she had no idea why, and what it meant until the x-rated library of Rosalind flashed up in image of exactly what it meant in rather too much detail for Mibbet’s tastes.

“isn’t it normal to charge interest on a loan?” Rosalind asked out loud. Of course, it was, but she was pretty sure there was something iffy about this whole business, in her experience Dave’s were territorial, and getting rid of one was harder than shifting a particularly embarrassing infection, and just as irritating. The entire thing about Dave’s was that even with your best efforts you could not get rid of them. When one wanted to leave an area it usually meant something big and nasty was in the works. Even if the forces of chaos itself were at the gates of their territory it was a fairly safe bet that a Dave would be at the city gates selling off “I turned into a gibbering wreck, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt” type merchandise, probably at considerable markup, all while proclaiming it the bargain of the century. The closest you could get to that was to insist he owed you a copper, and watch him disappear for a few hours, before nonchalantly returning and pretending he never heard the words owe or money.

The Dave’s were like a social weather vane, they only left when there was a hell of a storm brewing.

Of course in the mind of Dodgy Dave the idea of interest was met with extreme disinterest, he understood the theory, but it was against the basic rules of Dave’ing to repay money owed at all without multiple threats of grievous bodily harm being threatened prior to payment, to Dave’s the first dozen threats or so were supposed to be merely for advisory purposes, after the first dozen, (or when they started talking about broken legs, whichever came first,) was the only time the risk-reward ratio leaned in a direction where the risk was no longer worth it.

“Yeah you’re supposed to pay it back” Dave stammered, trying to process the blasphemy he had just uttered, “but that only works if you make it so they can pay back, loaning a copper shouldn’t mean paying back twenty gold a day, that’s just dirty.”

Mibbet quickly did the maths on that, wondering how the hell it was even possible to charge that much, something was rotten here. “That does seem a bit much” she ventured. Human finances were still fairly new territory to her, and the only reason she knew that amount was bad was because she had suddenly had a large dose of royal education crammed into her head alongside her froggy wisdom. She had to investigate this.

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Nicholas Owt (or nick to the handful of people he hadn’t double-crossed yet, a list that was in a constant state of flux. Apparently the role of being one of Nick’s “Mate’s” was a role that was subject to a lot of churn, probably because of all the backstabbing, that tended to be a messy business,) was sat in the corner of a bar, playing with his favourite knife when suddenly POOF, a bag of gold, and a picture of a young girl appeared. There were too striking details about this picture, the first was that it looked suspiciously like the crown princess. The second, and probably slightly more concerning issue, was that it had a dagger jammed through it so hard that it had gone through the tabletop, and this had happened so recently the blade was still making a noise like a wooden ruler twanged over a desk.

Nick didn’t care about petty details like that though, a job was a job, and he needed the money badly enough to not really care where it came from anymore, it was time to round up the gang and get to work.

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Belinda Tibbitz considered herself quite the classy young lady, a fact that she insisted on reinforcing by dressing for the role, which would probably have worked better if she in fact had any idea how a classy individual was expected to dress. In fact, her apparel looked like a leopard had been caught up in an explosion in a hot pink paint factory. She was however not to be underestimated, as she was an expert cleaner hired by most “legitimate businessmen” in the city. True the legitimate businesses in question were usually legitimately dangerous, and criminal, but that counted right? When she was not hard at work with her beloved icepick she insisted on calling kindness, she worked hard as Nick’s main assistant in sorting out such inconvenient things as evidence once work was over and fawned over him like a lovesick puppy. So when she noticed nick passing over her roof she quickly grabbed her bag of tricks, and followed, though how the hell she managed to run along rooftops in a pair of hot pink stiletto heels and a miniskirt was anybody's guess.

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Dipper had just put his hand in a pocket when the duo passed overhead. Because of the slight delay, his mark may have noticed the unscheduled intrusion in the trouser region and voiced an objection (a totally fair response in any context really). Of course, Dipper was rather unconcerned, and settled for plan B, knocking his mark out with a cosh, grabbing the purse, and getting the hell out of there. Effortlessly clambering up a slightly overgrown wall, and joining the rest of the gang. He liked working with Nick and was smart enough to realise he shouldn’t ask where they were going. Asking Nick questions was a leading reason for retirement from the world of the upright and breathing. Besides asking questions seldom led to violence, so why would Dipper go out of his way to spoil his own fun like that?

Better to just go along and join the party.